The Masterpiece

2 Corinthians 3:18 - And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

I was made in the image of God and heard the calling to become in the likeness of Him who made me. However, in my pride I opted to turn away from the Lord to my own way. I vandalized the image of God with my own sins so that any resemblance of Him would be painted over with my own evil. I desecrated His work with the black oil of transgressions. In time, I began to look less and less like His image so that any recollection of the original was obscured from myself and anyone else.

Though I had forgotten Him and how He made me, the Lord had not forgotten me. His light shining on the darkness of my worldly paint smears revealed the original creation beneath. What great sorrow overcame me to recall how I had vandalized this divine work of art with my own iniquities. Though I deserved to be thrown into a fire, the Lord does not rejoice in the destruction of the wicked. Tears of contrition flowed down from the frame over the canvas and with each repentant tear, a streak of the black began to give way to a masterpiece beneath.

He mercifully begins to pull away the tar, the oil, the filth away from the canvas. He shows great patience with me as He begins His restoration process. Beneath all the blemishes was a crushed, but unforgotten masterpiece. From the palette of His divine energies, He begins to transform me one layer at a time into the likeness of Him again. Hours of work, days and nights of mercy, months of grace, years of patience, He lovingly tends to me. Though I bear the marks of my previous mistakes, I am now a cooperative canvas on which I allow Him to lead the brush strokes of my life.

Though the work is far from finished, I can now see other paintings around me in a new way. Some are so extraordinary in that they reflect the image of God bringing glory to Him everywhere. Others are broken, but allowing God to lovingly restore them. And yet some have been so tarnished by the marks of sin, all that can be seen is the work of evil. But underneath all of those marks of lies, fear, anger, greed, lust, pride, envy, and hate which cover their canvas, there is still an image of God that the Lord wants to work with. Looking past their shortcomings, there is a masterpiece beneath.